Welcome to Gaia! ::

It's been a while since I've gotten back already, and I figured you would all be interested in what I'd been doing the past three months.
So here's a topic that you may find informing and hopefully reason enough to get you sailing across the world to the Netherlands, Japan or another place where they still have the uchi deshi programme.

What is an uchi deshi program?
An uchi deshi is a live-in student. Back in the day, this was a program offered by most teachers and practically every master or soke who wished to pass on his art to a qualified teacher.
Many grandmasters today agree that you cannot become a grand master without having experienced life as an uchi deshi.

An uchi deshi lives with the sensei, does everything to learn from him throughout the day and obeys him, and trains with the sensei both in the dojo and at home. The uchi deshi works and lives for martial arts 24/7.
Even the moments of rest are used to be capable of training better and more.

Today, the possibility of joining such a program is becoming slimmer and slimmer.
Even in Japan, people wanting to join such a program are having a hard time finding a place.

I was lucky to find a program almost in my own back yard.
A two hour train ride away is a dojo called Budo Academy Physical, located within the sports and fitness center called Physical.

There, sensei Edgar Kruyning gives lessons 6 hours every evening throughout the week in different disciplines and at his home accepts live-in students.
He has himself been a live-in student with Yoshio Sugino, of the tenshin shoden katori shinto ryu school and Minoru Mochizuki, founder of Yoseikan and a direct student of Morihei Ueshiba, Jigoro Kano, Gichin Funakoshi, Nakayama Hakudo and many others.
He has also trained at the kodokan dojo in Japan and teaches Dutch Olympic champions judo kata.

My experience:
The day I discovered this, I didn't hesitate to send an e-mail asking for information. Days later, I took the train to Veenendaal, to the home of sensei Edgar Kruyning.
It was a brief interview. He asked me what I wanted, what I'd done in the past and what I expected to learn during my stay.
After having answered these questions as well as I could, I was shown the dojo in the sensei's back yard and the room above it reserved for the uchi deshi's.
I still wanted it just as bad. We agreed that I would start as an uchi deshi late September.

I trained as well as I could until September, but I was desperately unprepared for the training I was about to receive.
I'm not sure anymore what I'd expected us to be training...
I can't remember having been surprised at any moment, though.
I had my first lessons of kickboxing, grappling, Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto Ryu and was faced with teaching a group of little children for the first time.

I've been through some of the best times of my life and some really, really bad times.
Like the time sensei needed to see our limits, made us fight him and the assistant teacher and made us pretty much fight for our lives.
I came back home crying, trembling, afraid. PJ, the other uchi deshi, had been coughing up blood and had red dots all over his face from the chokes.
Even worse was the last week, where a a contused rib forced me to tap almost the moment I was on the floor and an overstretched arm forced me to work with pretty much just one arm and kept me up at night.
I had gotten used to training, I'd come to love it. Not being able to "work" anymore was devastating to me. I cried out of sheer frustration those days.
Yet I stood there and let myself be thrown by each and every black belt in the school on my last day. Tradition dictates uchi deshi's be thrown once by every blackbelt on the day of their departure. XD

From this I learned that what makes a martial artist is pushing through.
Every day you face a challenge against yourself. Facing this challenge, time and time again, is what makes you a martial artist.
This is different from normal practice.
Normally, if you're having a bad day, you can skip practice. At the least, you have that option.
This isn't an option as an uchi deshi.

Being an uchi deshi means your food is energy for training. You clean yourself so your training partners won't need to complain. You sleep to be ready to train. You wake up to train. You dream of doing techniques.
Everything you do is unconditionally connected to training.

But there are fruits to this as well.
Living as an uchi deshi, personally, is like being on holidays.
You just sleep, eat, rest and train, after all! ^^
There's even parties for special occasions. ^^ Karaoke!
And you will see, every now and then, that you have, in fact, made huge progress.
When you leave, you will be leaving a life and an old self.
And in my case, a family. I have rarely experienced such a warm and welcoming environment.

All in all, this is the experience of a life-time. You may learn more about yourself in the few months you spend there than you would in twenty years.
If you believe you can grit your teeth and are looking for a way to come face to face with yourself, better yourself and experience martial arts as a way of life, there is nothing in life you will find a better investment than life as an uchi deshi.

Some details about the uchi deshi program:

Costs: 350 euro's per month of stay, all inclusive. (food, shelter, etc)
Location: Ede, Netherlands.
Website: www.yoseikan.nl (this is a dutch website, feel free to ask me anything you fail to understand)
Disciplines:
Judo, Aikibudo, Yoseikan, Kobudo (Tenshin Shoden Katori Shinto Ryu), grappling (shooto submission wrestling), free-style/mixed fight and kickboxing.
There are also Capoeira, shotokan karate and no-sparring classes, but I have never participated in these (several classes are given simultaneously and the other classes were preferred by the sensei).

For more information, please PM me.

xd
Let the admirative session begin! XD
What I'm saying, though, is that this program is open to anybody who is willing to do it.

If you would seriously be interested in participating, please contact me.

^^ I felt I should promote it after all I've been through for it. XD

I will do this. I really will. It just won't be until a few years from now, when I've completed the stuff I need to do here, and I've saved up money as well. I'm just one of those people who take forever to complete things, so even when you've forgotten that I've signed up for this, I will be plotting ways to get there. It'll just take me longer than what I intended. ^^;;

I have to admit though, I do fear that I will choke and just burst out into a pile of tears, for a I'm just that kind of person. ^^;;

However, I think I do have an idea of what I'm up for. I'll probably get an even bigger idea of it when I do a few more camps, so I won't be as shocked when I become a live in student training for six hours. I'll be shocked, but maybe not as much as I should be.

Actually, if anything, I'll probably get another culture shock. I'll be in a foreign country, in that speaks in a language I don't understand, without anyone I know. When I was in Japan, I was a little bit in a culture shock, but I had my mother with me and I was still able to communicate a but with the Japanese I did know. I was really discouraged when I couldn't read anything though. I felt illeterate. x.x; Thus, my reasons to learn how to at least read Hiragana. However, Deutch is a language I've never really heard, so that will be quite different.

Anyways, I will go, one way or another. Somewhere between 2007, 2008 most likely. It was the year I was planning to take a year off of school anyways to do travelling stuff.

Josh, I will end up going there. >.> Just don't be dissapointed if I don't get there the dates I say I want to. >.<

Holy crap. That's about all I can contribute here...

I can't imagine having to fight a sensei. I'd have to resort to some pretty nasty stuff to keep from getting killed. sweatdrop

Well, i doubt the sensei would be trying to kill you. xd An instructor fighting should not be trying to prove himself, but helping the student to get better. I've fought my sensei (AKA "Dad") a number of times. I still feel bad about breaking his finger. Kinda. Sorta. Not really. xd

Cool, Joshua is uchi deshi, I thought that no longer exists ... since most instructors don't really like students entering their private lives ... (they are still people too ... )

One of my teachers also live a few blocks away from my home, I visited his place a few times but I don't think he would like the idea of having a uchi deshi program there ... sweatdrop

I'd ask, maybe he'd be delighted of the idea..
My teacher has an uchi deshi living with him. mrgreen

Nice nice biggrin
Most fun I've ever had sparring was against 4/5/6th degrees.. nothing teaches you more than being thoroughly outclassed...
and nothing gives you a greater sense of achievement than afterwards them congratulating you on your performance